


Lost

by AutisticWriter



Series: Ian/Barbara [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Crying, Dementia, Established Relationship, F/M, Hugs, Incontinence, Memory Loss, One Shot, Sad, Terminal Illnesses, Unhappy Ending, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 15:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12302100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticWriter/pseuds/AutisticWriter
Summary: In which Ian has dementia, and he and Barbara struggle with everything that comes with it.





	Lost

His memory is failing. But he doesn’t know why. It doesn’t make sense – he has always had a very good memory. In fact, he used to be a teacher, if he remembers correctly. What is going on?

Ian doesn’t know what to do, so, as he always does when he needs help, he goes and finds Barbara.

“Barbara?” He says, sitting down beside his wife. “Why’s my memory going wrong? I couldn’t find the keys earlier.”

Barbara sighs and takes his hand. “Ian, don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“I... I look after the keys now.”

Ian frowns. “Why?”

“To stop you losing them,” Barbara is speaking slowly, like getting the words out is causing her pain.

Barbara puts her hands on his shoulders. She looks very serious. What is going on?

“What is it?” He says, and his voice quivers.

“Ian, you’ve got Alzheimer’s,” Barbara says.

Ian stares at her, his eyes going wide.

“What?” he says, frowning.

Barbara sighs, and she looks so sad. “It’s… it’s a type of dementia.”

“But... I’m fifty,” he says, feeling like he’s just banged his head.

Barbara sighs again. “It’s early onset. You were diagnosed two months ago.”

A memory flashes into his head. He was at the doctors, doing a memory test. He was getting most of the questions wrong, and the doctor looked worried. Barbara was there, and she looked worried too.

So Barbara is right. He has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. But he doesn’t feel nearly as scared as he probably should.

*

“I humiliated myself, Barbara,” he says, leaning his head against the cool, damp window.

They are on their way back from visiting Barbara’s sister and her nieces. Ian has his arms folded across his chest.

“It’s not your fault,” Barbara says, but Ian doesn’t believe her.

“Look, I don’t care how screwed up my brain is,” he says. “I should still be able to remember how old my niece is! It’s her birthday, for God’s sake!”

“It’s all right, Ian,” Barbara says, trying to reassure him. “They understood. No one’s annoyed with you.”

“ _I’m_ annoyed with me.”

He hates this. He hates that his memory is messed up. He hates how everyone treats him like an invalid. He hates how he has come across as a crap uncle. He just bloody well hates everything.

*

He’s standing in the middle of a road. Ian doesn’t know how he got here. All he knows is that his feet are going numb with cold and he has no idea where he is. He tries to walk over to the pavement and trips over the curb. His toes scrape against the concrete, but it doesn’t hurt that badly.

He’s starting to feel unsteady, his legs wobbling. Ian grabs onto a lamppost and tries to work out what to do. Even though he’s cold and numb and scared, he starts to feel drowsy...

“Ian?”

It’s still dark when he opens his eyes. His hands and feet are totally numb. He’s shivering. Barbara is shaking his shoulders. She looks terrified. Her hands are trembling.

“Thank God for that! I thought you were dead.” Barbara cries, and she hugs him. She’s so warm.

Barbara wraps him up with gloves and jackets and blankets and helps him walk back home. Ian doesn’t know what has happened. Barbara tells him that he went wandering off, that she was looking for him for hours. Was he really outside for that long?

The next morning, Barbara installs a special lock on the back door. Ian doesn’t walk in the night again.

*

“Barbara?” Ian says in amazement as his wife walks into the living room. Speaking is getting harder – he has to really think to get the words out.

Barbara grins, tears in her eyes. She hurries across the room and sits down beside Ian. “You recognise me?”

“What d’you mean?” He asks. This doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he?

“It’s just... you haven’t recognised me for days,” Barbara says, putting her arm around him. “I thought you’d forgotten me.”

Ian doesn’t know what Barbara’s talking about, but that isn’t anything new. So he doesn’t question her, and instead hugs Barbara as tight as he can, promising that he’s never going to forget Barbara.

*

Ian wakes up when Barbara shakes his shoulder. The light is on, and he has to squint. His legs feel cold and damp. Barbara looks worried and concerned. Ian sighs, wondering what the hell he has done now.

It turns out to be something really bloody embarrassing. He has wet the bed. Barbara is very calm with him, but that doesn’t stop Ian’s ears burning. He feels pathetic. How many grown men wet the bed?

He ends up in the bath in the middle of the night. Ian hugs his knees to his chest and stares at Barbara, who is sat on the closed toilet seat. Barbara smiles weakly, trying to explain how incontinence is common in people with dementia, but Ian doesn’t want to listen.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed, darling.”

“Well I am,” he says.

He hates this. Why is this happening to him? It isn’t fair.

*

He hears a key in the front door. But he thought people are only meant to knock. That’s what he was told. Wasn’t it?

A woman walks into the room. Ian stares at her. He has no idea who this woman is. The woman walks closer.

“Are you all right?” she says.

He isn’t all right. A stranger is coming nearer and nearer. What if she hurts him? She may be smaller than him, but Ian’s reflexes are slow and he can’t walk very fast anymore. He can’t run away. He’s trapped. He needs to escape.

He grabs the TV remote and advances on her. The woman smiles, but that only makes him feel worse. Why is she smiling at him? What’s she going to do?

“Ian?”

How does she know his name?

The woman steps forwards, holds her hand out towards him... and Ian panics. He screams, and hits the woman around the head with the remote. She drops to the ground.

Feeling like he might faint, Ian stumbles out into the hallway and heads to the door. But then he sees the thing on the wall. He stares the photos, and then sees the woman. He reads the information under the photo, and his chest feels really tight. This woman isn’t a stranger. She’s Barbara. And Barbara is his wife.

The remote is still in his hand. He drops it like it is burning hot. His legs are wobbling. He feels so sick. He has hurt his wife. How could he have forgotten her?

Ian stumbles back into the living room. The woman – Barbara— is lying on her back. Blood is oozing out of a cut on her head. Her eyes are closed. She might be dead. Has he killed her?

Ian sits down on the sofa. He puts his head in his hands. His hands are wet with tears, but he doesn’t remember starting to cry. His stomach is churning, but he doesn’t know what that means.

After however long (because Ian struggles with telling the time these days), Barbara wakes up. She looks groggy. She touches the cut and her fingers get covered in blood. She looks at Ian.

“Ian?”

Ian slides onto the floor and shuffles towards Barbara. Barbara flinches away and he feels even worse. Is Barbara scared of him?

“Please don’t hate me,” he babbles, and he’s slurring and stuttering so badly that Barbara probably doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he still needs to say it. “I didn’t know it was you. I’m so sorry.”

Barbara forgives him, hugs him, tells him it’s all right, but he still looks worried.

Ian is worried too. What if he does it again?

What if he forgets who Barbara is completely?

*

Everything is foggy. He doesn’t know where he is, what he’s doing, or who that woman is. He isn’t even sure he knows who he is. He thinks his name is Ian. But it might not be.

The woman says her name is Barbara, that she’s his wife. But Ian doesn’t know this woman’s face. She looks sad, but he didn’t do anything to upset her. Did he?

Then he’s in a car, and the woman called Barbara is sat beside him. She holds his hand, tells him that he’s all right. Ian stares at her. There are tears running down her cheeks. He wants to ask her why she’s crying, but he can’t seem to speak. There’s a scar on the side of the woman’s forehead. How did she get it? Did he hurt her? He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know anything.

He’s so scared.

***

It has been five years. They’ve just about managed for five whole years, but... Barbara can’t cope any more. She can’t live with Ian now... now he’s got so bad. His needs are just too hard for Barbara to manage alone.

So, despite the pain it has caused her, Barbara made the decision to put Ian in a care home. And today is the day Ian is moving in.

Barbara has to use all of her self control to hold back the tears. They spill over when she and Ian get into the minivan, and she sees Ian staring at her. She might be mistaken, but Ian looks like he wants to reassure her, but can’t find the words. Which he literally can’t, as his speech has deteriorated badly. More tears dribble down her face.

After a long meeting, Ian finally gets taken to his room. The nurse helps Ian into bed; he’s often too weak to stand by himself. Ian leans back against the pillows, his eyes wide as he scans the room. He looks so confused. He always looks confused.

Once Ian is settled, the nurse leaves them alone. Barbara sits down beside the bed, and takes Ian’s hand.

“I’m so sorry, Ian,” she says.

Ian stares blankly at her. Barbara knows Ian hasn’t recognised her in months, but it still hurts. She stays with Ian until her husband nods off.

Once Ian is asleep, Barbara gets to her feet and leans over him. Tears drip onto Ian’s forehead, but he doesn’t wake up. Biting her wobbling lip, Barbara carefully strokes Ian’s cheek, and runs her fingers through his thick hair. Sh kisses Ian’s forehead and sighs, her chest hurting.

This really feels like the end to her; Ian doesn’t recognise her anymore, he’s living in a home, and Barbara doesn’t know how much longer he has left. It’s not fair.

But when has life ever been fair?


End file.
